USA Confirms Plans For Missile Defense Base in Poland

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has confirmed Washington's plans to deploy missile defenses and Air Force units in Poland.

"As was announced by our two presidents in December, we plan to establish a new permanent U.S. air detachment in Poland, build missile defenses in Poland, and as agreed at the NATO summit, develop a contingency plan in the region," Clinton told journalists ahead of talks with Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski in Washington.

Wikileaks published U.S. cables in late 2010 showing that NATO was drawing up a plan on the protection of Estonia, Lithuania and Poland from external threats on a request from the United States and Germany.

 The Guardian reported that under the plan, reportedly approved by Clinton, the United States, Britain, Germany and Poland would deploy troops in the region in case of a military aggression against the Baltic States or Poland itself.

According to the British newspaper, NATO members approved the draft plan during the alliance's summit in Lisbon in November 2010.

 

 

In 2009, the United States decided to deploy several F-16 fighter jets and Hercules transport aircraft in Poland. Polish Defense Minister Bogdan Klich has said the United States was also planning to deploy Patriot missile defense systems in Poland at a base just 100 kilometers from the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

"We have a full agenda that will concentrate on three essential areas: building our mutual security, expanding prosperity and promoting democracy," Clinton said on Thursday, adding "as we grow our military partnership, we continue to expand economic ties between the Polish and American people."

Moscow has long opposed the deployment of U.S. missile defenses near its borders, arguing they would be a security threat and could destroy the strategic balance of forces in Europe.

The United States scrapped earlier plans in September last year for an anti-ballistic-missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland. Moscow welcomed the move, and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said later that Russia would drop plans to deploy Iskander-M tactical missiles in its Kaliningrad Region, which borders NATO members Poland and Lithuania.

Russia and NATO agreed to cooperate on the so called Euro missile defense system at the Lisbon summit. NATO insists there should be two independent systems that exchange information, while Russia favors a joint system.

Read More

Polish Troops Acquitted In Civilian Afghan Deaths

---

---

WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- A military court on Wednesday acquitted seven Polish soldiers in the killing of Afghan civilians in a 2007 attack in which they fired mortars and machine guns on a village in Afghanistan, killing civilians

Prosecutors had charged them with war crimes, in the first such case in Poland, but a five-judge panel ruled that there was not enough evidence to support those charges.

The defendants had argued that the mortar and machine-gun attack that killed the civilians in the Afghan village of Nangarkhel on Aug. 16, 2007, was an accident. They said they had been targeting Taliban extremists and that in the confusion of war they killed civilians by accident.

The defense made the case that in Afghanistan it can sometimes be hard for soldiers to distinguish civilians and extremists.

Poland has about 1,600 troops in NATO's mission in Afghanistan.

Prosecutors had sought prison sentences ranging from five to 12 years for the soldiers.

Read More

Russia Warns Poland Against Hosting US Fighter Jets

Russia on Thursday warned Poland against hosting US F-16 fighter jets, possibly from 2013, saying it would work to counter the move.
 Poland's Defence Minister Bogdan Klich announced last month that his country would accept a US proposal to host rotations of F-16 and Hercules transport aircraft and their crews on its territory.


"I hope this will begin in 2013," Klich had told Poland's TOK FM commercial radio station.

A statement issued by the Russian defence ministry said Thursday Moscow would "take into account the American-Polish plans and carry out [its] own armed forces development projects".

It did not elaborate but added: "We believe that different decisions would be better in the interest of European security."



Klich had said on November 18: "The Americans will come, conduct exercises with Poles and return home. Then, they will return periodically to Polish soil".

He added that the F-16 and Hercules rotations would be similar to those of US Patriot missiles which began rotations in Poland in May.
"The American presence on our territory constitutes an additional guarantee, an additional assurance that we are in an alliance (NATO) where our allies would come to our aid if the situation warranted," said Klich.

He also announced that in 2013 Poland and the three Baltic states would host, in an exercise of the NATO Response Force (NRF), a multinational contingent of about 25,000 troops available for rapid deployment in crisis management, stabilisation or collective defence.

Russia and Poland, a former Soviet satellite, have had strained relations since the fall of communism in 1989 and the demise of the Soviet Union two years later, and notably after Warsaw joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004.

Read More